


Growing Pains

by palomeheart



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Gender Dysphoria, Genderswap, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 19:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palomeheart/pseuds/palomeheart
Summary: Sometimes Fi thinks about how her life would be different if she had been born a boy.





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> It turns out writing gender swapped Dan and Phil was harder for me than I thought it would be, so here's 6,000 words of a female Phil having feelings about gender that are no way similar to my own. I promise Dan is in here too, it's just at the end.
> 
> Thanks to my partner for being a very supportive and patient beta reader. Any remaining mistakes are my own, as I'm indecisive and made a few last minute changes.

Sometimes Fi thinks about how her life would be different if she had been born a boy. 

Her name would be Phil, for one. Her mum had told her that one day when she was 12. Casually, as if it was just a fun bit of trivia. Fi had spent the next four hours with her back pressed firmly against the cold wall of the garage, branches digging into her arms and shins. Her mum had dragged her out, twenty minutes after dinner was meant to start, demanding an explanation, but she didn’t have one. That spot behind the row of hedges along the side of the house had been her not so secret hiding place since she was five, and it had always been where she went when the world felt too big or filled with rules no one had bothered to tell her. Thinking about herself as a boy named Phil made her feel small and caught out. She told her mum she’d forgotten to revise for an exam and gotten a bad grade, which earned her a lecture on responsibility and no dessert. It still felt better than what she imagined her mother would have said if she’d spent the whole time imagining what it would feel like to be someone called Phil.

After that day, though, she can’t quite get the thought out of her head. It’s not that she wants to be a boy, precisely. It’s just that in certain ways it feels like it would make things easier. Most of her friends are boys, and she prefers to do the things they want to do most of the time, like playing video games or going on adventures around the neighborhood. Then again, she hates sports and always runs away when Martyn and his friends start rough housing. And some of her girl friends do like video games or exploring. So maybe it doesn’t mean anything.

It’s a question that tugs incessantly at the corners of her attention, though, growing more determined as it makes less and less sense. How would it feel to be called young man rather than little lady by the cashier at the corner store? Would she like having short hair? Would her mum finally stop nagging her to brush it all the time? Would she be closer to her father, like Martyn was? Mostly, she wonders if she’d feel any different at all, or if it would be just as bad a fit on her as being a girl has been so far in her life.

***

It’s not until she’s about 14 that it really becomes apparent to the rest of the world that something’s not quite normal about her. It had been easy, mostly, to fly under the radar up until then. People seemed to find her odd in a way that was never gender specific. Kids ignored her or gave her mean nicknames because she was always a little out of sync, always too enthusiastic about the wrong things or not interested in the right ones. Sometimes it felt like she’d failed some sort of unspoken girl test, like the time she’d emerged from the kitchen at a sleepover covered in ketchup with an idea for a horror film on the tip of her tongue only to be met with five screaming girls, four of whom asked to go home immediately. But for the most part it seems like a vague peculiarity no one could articulate that was noted but went uncorrected.

She was by no means girly growing up, but she went in and out of phases that roughly balanced each other out. When she was five she apparently demanded her mother wash her favorite dress every night so she could wear it again the next day for three months straight. When she was eight she cut giant holes in all of her bathing suits and cried until her mother let her go play in the sprinkler out back in a pair of Martyn’s trunks, t-shirt discarded in the same pile of shirts as the neighbor boys’. On the whole, she was labeled a tomboy for most of her childhood, admonished for her muddy shorts and scraped knees in a way her brother never was, but it was never an issue. That is, until it was suddenly well past time that she started showing interest in boys, according to her mother and her friends and the neighbors and even her father once in a hushed tone overheard on a quest for a midnight snack. Everyone seems very interested in her interest, or lack thereof, and Fi isn’t sure when she fell so behind.

It’s not that she isn’t interested in boys, it just isn’t the way most of the other girls in her year seem to be. There was that one awkward kiss at a group date to the movie theater, but otherwise she mostly wants to play video games with boys and explore the stand of trees behind their neighborhood with boys and make horror films with boys. The boys had all been interested in doing those things too, up until everyone started sprouting breasts, and then they had mostly kept to themselves, except for dating. Fi still hangs out with Ian and a couple other friends to do those things, but it’s not the same and she knows it. Only she doesn’t really know why.

She cries to her mum about it, and she’s grateful that she doesn’t tell Fi what she’s started telling Martyn. But even if men don’t cry, Fi still wonders if this isn’t just another thing that would be easier if she were a boy. The trouble is, she’s not really interested in girls, and she’s heard what they say about Will, a boy in her class who’s not really interested in girls either. That definitely doesn’t seem easier.

Her mum tells her not to worry. It seems exciting now to try to grow up as fast as possible, but she’ll regret it when she’s older. That Fi is perfect just the way she is and she doesn’t have to be interested in boys right now. She has the rest of her life for that. She’ll only be a 14 year old girl once. She runs her fingers through Fi’s hair, and Fi’s seized with a sudden but familiar urge to hack it all off. What if she’s not perfect? What if she’s not a 14 year old girl? What if she has no idea what she is at all?

***

By the time she’s 17, Fi’s mostly got it worked out. Or maybe that isn’t even a little bit true, but she thinks she’s gotten better at hiding how perplexing she finds it all. At least until Anya, her best friend ever since she told Joe Miller to shut the fuck up about people being lesbians when he can’t get a girl to even look at him, shatters that illusion.

“Fiona!” Fi ignores the sharp tone, but winces at her name. It’s not that it’s a bad name; she thinks it’s quite pretty actually. It’s just never really seemed to fit, in a way she can’t even begin to articulate. Fi isn’t wildly better, but it seems simpler, easier to slip into. Less like a statement. She still rolls the name Phil around her mouth every once in a while, lets herself say it aloud when she’s all alone and the lights are out, or write it in the margins of her notes. It doesn’t feel quite right either, baggy and imposing like her father’s old suits she used to try on when she was alone in the house and bored. “Fiona!”

“What? Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I just– you’ve been in your own world a lot recently, is everything alright?” Fi is used to the sensation of words sticking in her throat or tumbling over her tongue in an unintelligible mess. She’s never been very good at speaking, and it’s only gotten harder as she’s gotten older. But now there are no words in her head to screw up at all. Is everything alright? Probably. There’s nothing wrong. It’s just not… right.

“I’m fine.”

“Do you– do you ever think about, um, or do you wonder sometimes what’d it be like…”

“Yeah?” Fi prompts, glad at the sudden shift to something that’s obviously bugging Anya. Other people’s problems she can do.

“Do you ever think about what it would be like to kiss a girl?” Fi knows the longer she stays silent, the more awkward this is going to get, only she’s back to having absolutely no words in her head. She may have forgotten the English language, in fact.

“Er, no?” It comes out a question, and it’s the truth, but it’s also somehow a lie, and a statement. One Anya seems to hear loud and clear.

“Right. Oh. Right. Of course not. Never mind. Please just forget I asked that. I should go. Just forget I came over at all, maybe. We can– can we just, like, never talk about this ever again?” Anya keeps going, Fi thinks, but her brain stops processing the individual words, and she’s just watching her friend’s face grow redder and redder. 

She looks away, hoping to dispel some of the tension, and her eyes land on the poster of Buffy hanging above her bed. That’s weird, right? Her parents had given her weird looks for that and her brother had called her queer until their mum overheard and cuffed his ear. But that was just teasing. She just loves Buffy. What’s not to love? She’d never thought about kissing her. Just the thought sends a shudder of– something through Fi. Disgust, probably. Right? That’s not– she doesn’t have a problem with gay people, but she’s not–

The sound of her door creaking snaps her back to reality and she’s back in her room with her best friend who looks like she’s about to cry and probably thinks about kissing girls and she knows she needs to say something.

“Wait! Anya, don’t– you don’t have to go. Come back.”

“No, really, I do. I should. I just need to be not here. Okay? It’s fine. You don’t–”

“I used to try on my dad’s suits when no one else was home.”

“Oh.” Anya shuts the door and sinks to the floor, much farther from Fi than she had been before, but not leaving anymore.

“I don’t think that’s normal.” Fi’s not sure what she was hoping to accomplish by sharing that particular secret. It had stopped Anya, but she needs to get them back on track.

“No. I–”

“You think about kissing girls?” Anya falls silent finally, and Fi fights back the urge to fill it with nervous blabbering that will give even more away.

“Sometimes.”

“Okay.”

“Is it?” Fi pauses, taking in Anya’s drawn shoulders and her fingers worrying a loose thread in the carpet.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t– I don’t care. Not that you need my permission, but–”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“You know what, Fi, don’t make me say it.”

“Uh, I don’t think so. I don’t really think about kissing anyone. I kissed Mark and it was kinda gross.”

“Yeah. You’ve said.” Her tone’s a little jagged now, and Fi’s not always great at tones, but she thinks it’s meant to imply something. Only not in the cruel, judgemental way it normally does. It almost sounds hopeful. Fi wonders, almost reflexively, if this would be easier if she were Phil, then realizes she wouldn’t be having this conversation if she were Phil, because Anya says she thinks about kissing girls, not boys. That feels significant in a way it never has before. Warmer.

“I guess… it doesn’t sound so bad.”

“No?” Fi’s starting to feel a little queasy now, but that feels warmer too in a heady sort of nonsensical way that makes her want to giggle. Giggling doesn’t seem like the proper response right now though. 

She does it anyway when Anya scooches forward on the floor so that they’re less than a foot apart.

“Uh, well I don’t know.” Fi gathers up all the courage she can muster, finds it lacking, then carries on anyway. “I’ve never tried.”

Fi’s pretty sure when she looks back on it that Anya must have leaned in because she’d used up any daring she’d had on that vaguely suggestive statement. Either way they’re kissing and Fi thinks that maybe being a girl isn’t so bad if it means this, and then she stops thinking altogether for a while.

***

When she’s 18, Fi tells Anya she can’t do this anymore. ‘This’ is making out for hours on her bed, a chair propped under the door to keep her mother from barging in. They also make out in Anya’s bed, on the floor, on couches when their parents and siblings aren’t home, and, on a couple of particularly bold instances, at the back of a mostly empty movie theater. They never go out on dates, and they don’t define anything, but Fi gets the sense that Anya thinks of them as a couple. Fi does too, when that thought doesn’t terrify her.

She’s not sure what about it terrifies her, exactly. She hates the word lesbian and can’t bring herself to use it, even after Anya comes out to their friends and uses it liberally. Anya suggests one night that maybe she’s bi, but that doesn’t feel right either, and she eventually settles on saying she doesn’t like labels. It feels like a cop out, but it also feels startlingly light, and Anya accepts it, so they move on from that.

Fi also hates the looks they get when they forget themselves and get too close in public. Men’s gazes often snag and linger, while women look away quickly, frowning. It’s not everyone by any means, but it’s enough to remind Fi why they’re keeping their arrangement a secret. She somehow feels both more and less like a girl when people have these reactions, and though she’s wished for both of those things, she doesn’t like either of them in those moments. Who the fuck are those people to think she’s any less of a woman because she’s holding another woman’s hand? What do they know about who she is just because they think the idea of two women together is hot? But Fi doesn’t know how to make these arguments without them negating each other, and even if she did, she’d never be able to confront anyone with them.

Mostly Fi thinks she’d make a terrible girlfriend. She’s awful at telling Anya what’s on her mind, and she’s never once even hinted at her obsession with the name Phil and the potential alternate reality version of herself. Anya shares all of her feelings and secrets with Fi. Anya pays attention and remembers all of Fi’s favorite things and gets Fi little presents for holidays, and sometimes just because. Fi’s afraid of hurting Anya and she’s even more afraid of hurting herself, so they keep it loose, undefined, and both pretend they’re okay with it.

Until Fi, more and more aware of the looming deadline of uni drawing ever closer and increasingly unsure of just about everything, decides it’s better if they just call it quits now. She’d expected Anya to put up a fight, and it hurts more when she just nods and leaves without a word. They don’t talk for two weeks and Fi’s never felt more alone in her life. Then Anya’s back without any explanation, and it’s almost like it was before, except with less kissing and 20% more awkwardness.

Fi still misses her, and she knows she’s going to miss her even more when they both go away to school, but she tells herself it’s part of growing up and that it’s better for both of them this way. This time she doesn’t cry to her mum, because then her mum would ask questions and then she would know. Fi doesn’t think she’d get the same speech about being perfect just the way she is this time around.

***

When she goes to uni, Fi thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself. She can finally be the girl she’s always wanted to be, the one everyone’s expected of her. It takes her an unfortunate two weeks of lying about her sexual exploits to learn that the world is just as cruel to experienced women as it is to the inexperienced, and she goes from being mocked for being a virgin to judged for being a slut. Uni is big though, and there’s a lot more going on to distract the rumor mill, so by a month or so in everyone’s mostly forgotten. Plenty of boys still assume she must want to have sex with them, but they’re easy enough to turn down, and when they’re not, her new friends always step in. It’s these times Fi feels the warm joy in her womanhood like she hasn’t since being with Anya, protected and understood in these little moments by the women around her.

One time when she’s drunk and more forthcoming than normal, she discovers that having fooled around with girls is an exception to the slut rule and she entertains a few questions about it until it starts to feel voyeuristic. She shuts them down by answering that the farthest she’s ever been with a girl is Florida. It’s true in two senses, because she brought Anya on their family vacation to Florida one year and that’s where they went the furthest they’d ever gotten, no shirts or bras, rubbing against each other’s legs to get off. But she’s certainly not going to tell them that.

The weeks turn into months and the performance starts to wear on her. She may not know who she is, but she knows this uni Fi is someone she isn’t. She talks to her mum again, because when push comes to shove she always just wants a cuddle and advice from her mum. After a heavily edited recounting of her troubles, her mum tells her that uni is the time for experimenting and figuring out who you are. She tells Fi that no one really knows who they are, even her after all these years, and it’s alright to figure it out as you go. Fi’s pretty sure this isn’t what she meant at all, but she leans into the advice, shocked at how relieving it feels to just stop caring.

When people ask, she says she doesn’t like labels. When her own mind asks, she firmly repeats the same thing, and it isn’t an instantaneous fix, but it slowly becomes easier to believe. She starts kissing more people, boys and girls, and enjoys most of it. If she were forced to pick, she probably likes kissing girls a bit better, and she definitely likes the idea of dating girls better, but no one is asking her to pick, so she doesn’t. She starts making queer friends and they usually don’t even ask at all. When they do, they give an expansive list of options, or leave it open ended. Fi learns not to be afraid of that.

One day Fi discovers YouTube, and a few weeks later, she uploads her first video. A few people watch it, and she makes another. More people watch that, so she keeps up the cycle, uploading silly sketches with friends, rambling vlogs about her thoughts, and sometimes short horror films, like she used to make with her friends when she was a kid. It feels like another space where the possibilities of who she is are endless and this time that feels like an opportunity to be herself. As her view counts grow, the comment section grows more and more vile, but she tries to ignore it. She makes even more friends, most of them queer this time, and she turns her comments off when they get too bad, but even the worst ones can’t make her stop loving it.

***

Back from uni the summer after her first year, Fi agrees to go to a party with Anya and a bunch of their old school friends, then almost cancels on her five different times. They’d seen each other over winter break, but Fi had still mostly resembled her old self then. Anya also had a new girlfriend, which had made things feel easier, but Fi knows they’ve broken up. She’s not seeing anyone either, not that she ever does seriously, and she knows from stalking her Facebook that she finds Anya just as attractive as ever. She tells herself that she’ll be careful not to drink too much and texts Anya that she’ll be over in ten.

Five drinks in, Fi’s found a couch to sit on in the hopes that the room will stop spinning. The party’s been fun, her old classmates surprisingly more tolerable than she’d expected. Things aren’t too awkward between her and Anya, but that’s probably because Anya’s spent most of her time dancing, an activity Fi has never enjoyed. She closes her eyes for just a moment, then wakes with a start when she feels a hand land heavily on her thigh and looks up to see Anya has joined her on the couch. How long was she asleep? She feels decidedly less drunk, but still decidedly not sober. The party is still humming along, music loud and voices louder. Anya leans in and shouts anyway.

“How are you doing, Fi?”

“‘M good. How are you?”

“Horny.”

“Oh.” Anya always was a handsy drunk, and Fi would probably be saying something to that effect now if she wasn’t choking on her Malibu. Anya runs a soothing hand over her back and then she’s stopped coughing and they’re kissing. Fi thinks distantly that she had meant to definitely not do this, but she can’t remember why and she lets herself sink into the familiar sensation for a while.

A wolf whistle jolts her back to reality, and she breaks away, catching the middle finger Anya throws up out of the corner of her eye as she hurries off in the direction she remembers the bathroom being.

She’s got the bathroom door half shut when Anya grabs the knob and yanks it open again.

“We need to talk.”

“I have to pee.” Anya steps inside and shuts the door behind her, crossing her arms.

“Go ahead.” Fi rolls her eyes, but pulls down her jeans and sits anyway. Anya looks a little surprised, probably because in all they did when they were younger Fi always refused to take off her pants. With nine flatmates and two toilets, she’d gotten over her distaste of peeing in front of other girls a long time ago. Especially while she's still tipsy.

“You wanted to talk?” Anya stays quiet while Fi pees, letting her flush and wash her hands before responding.

“Why’d you leave?”

“I didn’t feel like being objectified by men.”

“Eric was just being an arse. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well. It does to me.” Fi shifts a little, trying to get to the door, and Anya leans back on it. Fine. “It isn’t about you. Really. But I don’t think we should be doing this.”

“Why not?” Fi sifts around her head, trying to remember the really solid reasons she’d listed to herself while getting dressed that this was a bad idea.

“It just seems like a bad idea.”

“I know you’ve fooled around with other girls, Fi. I saw the pictures. I don’t mean– I’m not like jealous or mad. I just mean you seem fine with kissing them.”

“Yeah, but–”

“Let me guess. But you don’t date them.”

“No. I don’t– I haven’t really dated anyone.” She almost adds, ‘since you,’ but thankfully catches that disaster before it gets out of her mouth.

“Are you a lesbian?” 

“I don’t think I can be.” Fi slams a hand over her mouth, but it doesn’t matter, Anya doesn’t interpret it the way drunk Fi had meant it.

“It’s not about what you can be, Fi, it’s what you are. If you like girls–”

“I like guys too, though,” Fi interrupts, almost believing herself. She does. Sometimes. In the right light. If they look a bit like girls. That’s not the point, anyway.

“Fine, then you’re bi.”

“But can I be bi, though, if… it’s not– I mean people don’t think–”

“Fi, I know people are dickbags. Eric is a dickbag, but bisexuality is totally a valid sexuality. You can be bi.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“What if I’m not either?”

“What, not attracted to either boys or girls? I thought you just said–”

“No, not– just, never mind. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not, if it’s got you this upset. You can talk to me about it.”

“Do you know what your parents would have called you if you were a boy?” she blurts out, and suddenly the frustration in Anya’s face clears a bit, replaced by confusion.

“Uh. No. Why?”

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“What does this– oh. Oh.” Fi shivers, suddenly very cold, and she considers shoving Anya aside so she can get out of this stupid bathroom. “Do you mean–”

“No. No. I told you, it doesn’t matter. That’s not–”

“You know there’s someone in my program who’s trans. She was born a boy, but–”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Anya.” Her voice reverberates off the tiled walls, louder than she’d meant, shriller than she’d like, and quite clearly distressed. Anya won’t believe her. No matter what she says at this point, she’s going to think Fi admitted this thing to her, and it won’t be quite right, and it won’t be quite wrong, but she won’t know that.

“Okay. I’m not trying to–”

“Just forget about it, alright? That’s not what this is.” Anya doesn’t put up any resistance this time when Fi moves to the door, or when Fi leaves. Someone tries to catch her arm as she moves through the main room, but she shrugs them off and gets outside before she starts crying. She knows she could call her mum to come get her, and part of her wants to, but she doesn’t know how to explain this without explaining this, and her mum won’t let her get away with crying without telling her what’s wrong. She never has.

There’s a slight chill to the air despite the muggy heat of the day, and Fi almost enjoys the walk home. Except it’s quiet now and she has nothing to do but walk and think about it. She knows about being trans. Some of the new friends she’s made are trans. But they know who they are and no matter how much she thinks about it she never seems to be able to figure anything out. Even when she tells herself it doesn’t matter, labels are meaningless, she can’t fully shake it, and she definitely can’t figure it out. Really, she’s probably just thinking about it too much.

***

When she’s 20, Fi decides she needs to make a change. She hates change, so it needs to be a simple one, but she’s feeling itchy and restless again and she knows she has to do something to make it go away. In the end it’s a stupid ad she sees online that inspires the solution. An ad for a pair of Sonic the Hedgehog boxers. She goes to the farthest ASDA she can think of that the bus will still take her to and spends 10 minutes pacing up and down the pharmacy aisles before she gathers the courage to walk into the men’s section. People will just think she’s shopping for her boyfriend, she tells herself repeatedly. Or, more likely, they won’t care at all. It still takes her another two laps around the perimeter before she makes it to the aisle in question.

There are probably fewer options than there are in the women’s underwear section, but it still feels far more overwhelming. She hadn’t really considered what kind of pants she wanted, just that men’s pants would somehow fix something that doesn’t even really feel broken, necessarily. She scans the shelves, ruling out briefs as they seem too much like the underwear she’s already wearing, and boxers as well after a little more thought, as they wouldn’t fit well under her jeans. Boxer briefs it is, then.

With a sinking stomach, she finds only two tills open, both manned by men. Somehow this feels like it would be 1000 times easier if a woman could just ring her up. She could still dump the stupid pants and leg it, but she’s gotten this far and the pants have gotten a little damp from her sweating palms and she really just wants this to be over now, so she marches up to the closest till and slams the underwear down on the conveyor defiantly. Her defiance ends there and she can’t bring herself to make eye contact or engage in any small talk, but what little the man does say sounds bored and not at all like he’s figured out she’s buying these for herself and is subsequently horrified or concerned. 

When she gets back to her room she tears open the packaging and puts them on immediately. They’re more comfortable than she expected, though they don’t fit her body quite right and it brings back the confusing right not right feeling she gets sometimes. Still, it feels like something different to be wearing them. They don’t change anything really, but they feel like a small rebellion, something just for her, something that somehow settles the prickle in her skin whenever she wears them, and that’s enough for now.

***

When she’s 22, Fi finally meets someone who thinks about things more than she does. Her name is Dan and she laughs a loud, unapologetic laugh when Fi blurts out that she’d almost blocked her at first because she’d thought Dan was some creepy stalker boy. Dan launches into some sort of story about why she goes by Dan and all the fights she’s had with people about it being a confusing nickname. Fi only half pays attention, Dan’s laugh still ringing in her ears.

This is their first conversation, a voice call on Skype because of shitty internet connections. It occurs five weeks after Fi had first responded to a comment Dan had left on a video of hers. After a few false starts, they’d been messaging each other basically non-stop for two weeks. Fi’s been so obviously happier since they started talking that her mum asked her if she’d gotten a boyfriend, and then, four days later when Fi’s spacey smile hadn’t dissipated, if she’s doing drugs. She’d just kissed her mum on the cheek, grabbed a biscuit, and gone back to her laptop to talk to Dan some more.

The thing is, even though she’s been acting like it, she’s not an idiot. She’s heard all the horror stories, watched all the PSAs. She knows not to give away her personal information online, not to trust that strangers are who they say they are. A charming, funny, perfect seeming 18 year old girl from outside of London could easily be a creepy 58 year old man who wants to abduct her. Thus the voice call. 

She’d been so nervous she thought she might actually throw up this morning, but she’d tried to keep her expectations in check. At least a little. Chances that such a perfect person exists were slim. They liked too many of the same things, and Dan was too funny, too sweet. She left comments on every one of Fi’s videos, encouraging her, telling her what she loved about them. Fi was probably being scammed. And even if she wasn’t, they probably wouldn’t get on as well actually talking. It would probably be awkward. Only it wasn’t. Or mostly not. 

By forty minutes into the call, Fi’s 90% sure this isn’t some elaborate voice recording and apart from a few short silences the conversation’s been going better than any Fi’s ever had in her life. Of course some creepy old man could still be getting someone else to have this conversation with her, but Dan promises they can try a video call sometime soon, shitty connection be damned.

Fi can feel the conversation beginning to peter out, and she knows she should probably say she has to go. An hour is an impressively long time to talk to an almost stranger, and she should be pleased it went this well. She is. But something about the rhythm of their back and forth reminds her a little of Anya and then there’s something sharp at the back of her throat, making it hard to say anything at all. Except things she shouldn’t say.

“Tell me something weird about yourself,” Dan says, and Fi’s not sure if it’s out of the blue or not because she still hasn’t kicked her bad habit of spacing out during conversations.

“What?” Dan’s laugh rings over the connection again, deep and rich and Fi’s favorite new sounds.

“I wanna know something weird about you. Something that will make me feel like less of a hopeless fangirl. Maybe make me completely delusional and let me think I have a chance.” Fi grins to herself, mentally tallying another flirty comment to overanalyze later.

“You need to know more weird stuff about me?”

“What are you talking about? Of course I do. You’re AmazingFi, Youtube superstar.” Fi snorts and Dan tsks and her. “Really, though, tell me something about yourself. Um. If you want.” Her voice goes quiet at the end, unsure in a way Fi’s felt this whole time, and Fi’s seized with a need to stop that right now.

“If I was a boy my parents would have named me Phil.” Once she’s said it, she’s paralyzed by the idiocy of it. That’s not something about herself. Or it is, but way too much and also not something that seems like any sort of response a normal person would give. Dan did say weird.

“Hmmm. AmazingPhil. That has a nice ring to it.” Fi lets out a startled laugh, wincing at how stupid it sounds, but she’s buzzing too much to care.

“I guess. I’d never thought of it like that, actually. Oddly enough.”

“What do you mean?” She sounds like she actually wants to know and Fi decides to take the gamble of believing her. It’s probably because, when all’s said and done, Dan is basically a stranger. There’s no real risk in telling her. But she also likes to think it’s because of the way they’ve clicked so far. Dan seems safe, with her defiantly masculine nickname and the care she’s taken in listening and responding to Fi so far.

“Dunno. I guess I just… think about it sometimes. Especially when I was a kid. What it would be like to be that alternate version of me. A boy named Phil.”

“Like string theory?”

“Kind of. Not really. Like… what it would be like to be a boy. What things would be different. What things would be the same. How I’d still be the same me but everyone would treat me completely differently. If I’d like that better.”

“Whoa,” Dan says slowly after a long pause in which Fi starts to calculate just how badly she’d fucked this all up.

“Sorry–”

“No, don’t apologize. That’s just a lot to think about. I’d never really thought about it like that, you know? Like, I think if I’d been born a boy but I was still me, I’d be, like, girl me, but a boy. Does that make sense? Huh.” Dan goes quiet again and Fi wants to think she’s just lost in the thought exercise of it. Honestly Fi’s reeling a bit at how well that went, relative to every other conversation she’s tried to have about this, real and imaginary. She sits in the silence for a bit, allowing herself to ignore the little ways Dan didn’t really get it. Fi doesn’t get it either, and Dan’s at least trying. But like the flip of a switch it becomes overwhelming and she needs to shift the focus away from herself.

“Do you know what you would have been named if you’d been a boy?”

“Well, mine’s kind of boring. It’s built into the name. I think they would have just called me Daniel.”

“Would you go by Daniel, or Dan do you think? Or Danny?” 

“Dan, probably. Daniel sounds so formal and posh. And I only let very specific people call me Dani. It’s, like, a thing.”

“Yeah?”

“It just feels like in the wrong hands it’s this cutesy, really girly name that a perky, like, tennis player in a cardigan should have.”

“Tennis player?”

“You know what I mean. It doesn’t feel like me. So I only let people who know me call me that, you know? Like if they don’t think of that version of me when they call me that. My mum calls me that, sometimes, and my ex used to.”

“Oh.” Suddenly Fi’s glad it’s just a voice call this time, because she thinks her eyes are probably starting to get at least a little bit red. She doesn’t say it, but she thinks that maybe one day Dan will let her call her Dani, and maybe by then Fi will have worked out how to say what it is she’s been trying to say all these years and maybe Dan will get it. And that’s enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! [Tumblr post here](https://phanomeheart.tumblr.com/post/183151108242/growing-pains-t-62k-summary-sometimes-fi)


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